Human Adaptation to Biodiversity Change: Building and Testing Concepts, Methods, and Tools for Understanding and Supporting Autonomous Adaptation
Lead Research Organisation:
University of Kent
Department Name: Sch of Anthropology & Conservation
Abstract
Biodiversity change directly threatens the livelihoods, food security, and cultural and ecological in-tegrity of rural subsistence-oriented households across the developing world. People will be forced to respond to it in ways that either mitigate loss of biodiversity and ecosystem services or that ex-acerbate losses. An unprecedented extinction of species is underway, and climate change is af-fecting species' range and phenology, leading to new species configurations that affect ecosystem services in unpredictable ways. With climate change and continued habitat alteration entailed in human population growth, 'novel' ecosystems will become even more prevalent. In the UN Interna-tional Year of Biodiversity, scientists and policy makers must recognise that humans, biodiversity, and ecosystems must co-evolve and co-adapt. However, Human Adaptation to Biodiversity Change is not considered as theme in any international, regional, or national science or policy for-ums. There is a dearth of scientific research about HABC, so scientists and policy makers lack mandates, conceptual frameworks, knowledge, and tools to project or predict human responses and their actual or potential outcomes, synergies, and feedbacks. Indeed, 'A significant new re-search effort is required to encourage decision makers to consider biodiversity, climate change and human livelihoods together' (Royal Society 2007). At the same time, there is a call for a 'para-digm shift' in adaptation thinking away from top-down planning and toward supporting local adapta-tion. Local adaptation efforts go unnoticed, uncoordinated, and unaided by outsiders and, unless policy makers become aware of the importance and extent of autonomous adaptation processes and understand what influences their outcomes, adaptation and mitigation policies may be ineffec-tive or counter-productive. This project's aim is to kickstart the development of appropriate conceptual frameworks, methods and integrated models for understanding human adaptation to change in biodiversity and related ecosystem services that can eventually be used to predict outcomes for biodiversity, eco-system services and human well-being in highly biodiversity dependent societies, and provide evi-dence for the utility of these outputs to a new network of researchers and policy makers. The build-ing blocks for development of concepts, methods, tools and models are a) local information or knowledge systems and monitoring capacity, b) local valuation of biodiversity and related ecosys-tem services; c) integrating biological resources and ecosystem services into an understanding of livelihood processes, d) assessing perceptions, risks, needs, and ability to respond, and e) under-standing biological and welfare outcomes and feedbacks. The project joins partners from anthro-pology, economics and ecology/biology at Oxford, Kent and SOAS, with partners from South Africa and India. Partners will jointly elaborate the conceptual framework in a first intensive workshop us-ing a scenario building protocol. Then, teams incrementally develop and evaluate research proto-cols and methods and collect primary data in a field research site in the Western Ghats, and re-sults are initially modeled. A second workshop revises the scenarios and prepares a second field data collection phase. This iteration permits further grounding of the conceptual framework and methods, and development and testing of a stronger, less aggregative model based on much bet-ter decisions about how different variables interact. After the second field research phase, scenar-ios are revised and integrated analysis and modelling of the data is done, and variables, variable sets, or system state indicators that are useful for monitoring biodiversity, ecosystem services and human well-being with biodiversity/ecosystem change are identified. A science-policy network is kickstarted (see impact plan).
Publications
Barnes J
(2013)
Contribution of anthropology to the study of climate change
in Nature Climate Change
Dorward A
(2014)
Livelisystems: a conceptual framework integrating social, ecosystem, development, and evolutionary theory
in Ecology and Society
Howard P
(2013)
Addressing Tipping Points for a Precarious Future
Howard PL
(2019)
Introduction: Autochthonous human adaptation to biodiversity change in the Anthropocene.
in Ambio
Howard PL
(2019)
Human adaptation to invasive species: A conceptual framework based on a case study metasynthesis.
in Ambio
Kent R
(2014)
Livelihood responses to Lantana camara invasion and biodiversity change in southern India: application of an asset function framework
in Regional Environmental Change
O'Riordan, Timothy; Lenton, Timothy
(2013)
Addressing Tipping Points for a Precarious Future
Description | Rapid biodiversity change that is already occurring across the globe is accelerating, with major and often negative consequences for human well-being. Biodiversity change is partly driven by climate change, but it has many other interacting drivers that are also driving human adaptation, including invasive species, land use change, pollution and overexploitation. Humans are adapting to changes in well-being that are related with these biodiversity drivers and other forces and pressures. Adaptation, in turn, has feedbacks both for biodiversity change and human well-being; however, to date, these processes have received little science or policy attention. Human adaptation to biodiversity change was introduced as a science-policy issue. Research on human adaptation to biodiversity change requires new methods and tools as well as conceptual evolution, as social-ecological systems and environmental change adaptation approaches must be reconsidered when they are applied to different processes and contexts-where biodiversity change drivers are highly significant, where people are responding principally to changes in species, species communities and related ecosystem processes, and where adaptation entails changes in the management of biodiversity and related resource use regimes. The research published in a Special Issue of Ambio, some derived from the HABC project and some from other investigations, was carried out in different marine and terrestrial environments across the globe. All of the studies consider adaptation among highly biodiversity-reliant populations, including Indigenous Peoples in the Americas and Europe, farmers in Asia and marine resource users in Europe and the Pacific. The concept of autochthonous adaptation is introduced to specifically address adaptation to environmental change in local systems, which also considers that local adaptation is conditioned by multiscalar influences and occurs in synergy or conflict with adaptations of other non-local agents and actors who enable or constrain autochthonous adaptation options. Research on human adaptation to biodiversity change was found to cluster around sub-themes: historical antecedents to contemporary adaptation processes, adaptation actions and actors, factors that facilitate or constrain adaptation, multi-scalar influences and emergent properties of adaptation, adaptation outcomes, relations between autochthonous adaptation and policies or planned interventions, and future scenarios. Numerous questions emerge when considering specific adaptation drivers, contexts and agents, and certainly future research will serve to clarify and formulate new questions, as well as approaches, methods and tools, that add to, refine and reformulate those presented in this volume. We believe that, with the publication of this volume, we have gone some way towards conceptualising and illustrating the relevance of human adaptation to biodiversity change as a new terrain for science and policy endeavours. |
Exploitation Route | Conceptual frameworks, methods and tools were advanced that can be used by researchers, policy makers, and those working in related applied fields. These are summarised in Howard and Pecl 2019 Ambio 48(12). |
Sectors | Agriculture, Food and Drink,Communities and Social Services/Policy,Environment,Government, Democracy and Justice,Culture, Heritage, Museums and Collections |
URL | https://link.springer.com/journal/13280/48/12 |
Description | Consultation on the Draft work programme for IPBES 2014-2018, including the prioritized lists of requests put to the Platform, and the Draft Stakeholder Engagement Strategy. JNCC, Peterborough, 9 July 2013 |
Geographic Reach | National |
Policy Influence Type | Implementation circular/rapid advice/letter to e.g. Ministry of Health |
Description | Report of a workshop on identification of scientific and technical needs related to the implementation of the Strategic Plan for Biodiversity 2011-2020 and its Aichi Biodiversity Targets |
Geographic Reach | National |
Policy Influence Type | Implementation circular/rapid advice/letter to e.g. Ministry of Health |
Description | Requests made to IPBES on scientific and technical matters, and were submitted to the IPBES Secretariat. JNCC, Peterborough, 18 March 2013. |
Geographic Reach | National |
Policy Influence Type | Implementation circular/rapid advice/letter to e.g. Ministry of Health |
Description | Conservation of rare, endangered and threatened wild plants species through community participation (INDIA) |
Amount | £5,910 (GBP) |
Organisation | Rufford Small Grants Foundation |
Sector | Charity/Non Profit |
Country | United Kingdom |
Start | 09/2012 |
End | 09/2014 |
Description | Conservation of rare, endangered and threatened wild plants species through community participation (INDIA) |
Amount | £5,910 (GBP) |
Organisation | Rufford Small Grants Foundation |
Sector | Charity/Non Profit |
Country | United Kingdom |
Start | 11/2012 |
End | 05/2014 |
Description | Qualitative Synthesis of Literature on Human Adaptation to Biodiversity Change |
Amount | £8,200 (GBP) |
Organisation | Wageningen University & Research |
Sector | Academic/University |
Country | Netherlands |
Start | 01/2014 |
End | 12/2014 |
Description | Qualitative Synthesis of Literature on Human Adaptation to Biodiversity Change |
Amount | £8,200 (GBP) |
Organisation | Wageningen University & Research |
Sector | Academic/University |
Country | Netherlands |
Start | 01/2014 |
End | 12/2014 |
Title | Literature Metasynthesis of case studies on human adaptation to invasive species |
Description | A global systematic literature search was conducted as documented in Howard, P. 2019 Ambio 48(12). A conceptual framework was developed based on 70 publications covering 55 case studies of human adaptation to invasive species. Data were coded according to the methods described in Howard, P. 2019 Ambio 48(12). Qualitative data and codes were entered into Excel. Supplementary Materials in Howard, P. 2019 Ambio 48(12) document the conceptual framework categories, definitions, and case study examples. |
Type Of Material | Database/Collection of data |
Year Produced | 2019 |
Provided To Others? | No |
Impact | Too early to tell. |
URL | https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s13280-019-01297-5#Sec28 |
Description | BBC Radio 4 Broadcast; Podcast in Plants - From Roots to Riches 'Plant Invaders' Shonil Baghwat on Lantana in India 31 July 2014 |
Form Of Engagement Activity | A talk or presentation |
Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
Geographic Reach | International |
Primary Audience | Public/other audiences |
Results and Impact | BBC Radio 4 Broadcast ; Podcast in Plants - From Roots to Riches 'Plant Invaders' 31 July 2014 potentially reached a large national and, through the podcast, international audience. Shonil Baghwat presented a discussion stemming from project work on Lantana camara invasions in India, addressing as well human adaptation to the invasion. Not aware of possible impact from such a widely diffused public programme. |
Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2014 |
URL | http://www.bbc.co.uk/podcasts/series/plantsfrtr/all |